Voters in Murrieta thought they were sticking it to “fat cat” bureaucrats in 2010 when they passed Measure E, which called for a hard cap on the pay of certain city employees.

But the council has routinely ignored the strict limits in the measure — which called for total compensation to be capped at 2.5 times the city’s median household income — and has given its top officials salaries in line with neighboring cities.

The council next week will consider a contract for Summers, a former high-ranking Hesperia official who has served as assistant city manager in Murrieta since 2014. The proposed contract calls for paying her a base annual salary of $225,248, effective April 4 2017.

“These guys are ignoring the law,” said Bob Kowell, one of the key backers of Measure E. “I so disgusted about everything, except for Trump doing some good things.”

“I don’t have the money to do that,” Kowell said Friday, adding that he’s outraged — and long has been — about the political system in the state, which became national news following the scandal in Bell, and the country, which he said seems to excessively enrich bureaucrats at the expense of the residents they serve.

If the city had followed the guidelines in the measure, which was approved by 66 percent of voters, Summers’ base salary would have been in the $140,000 to $150,000 range, according to an analysis by Assistant City Attorney Jeffery Morris.

Summers is making around $200,000 right now, plus benefits. If her new contract is approved next week — the council meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 9 in City Hall — she’ll be making a bit more in base salary than Dudley’s 2015 rate, which included a base of $223,105, according to the Transparent California database, and total compensation of $335,276.

Murrieta officials have long defended the city’s legal right to set pay scales for its top employee that exceed the median income provision in the measure that voters approved.

In an ordinance that was approved in 2011 following the measure’s passage, the provision became just one of the factors the city considers when it is negotiating contracts with top officials, a list that includes average base salary of employees in comparable positions in Southern California cities with similar populations plus the qualifications and the performance of the individual candidate.

“The way it works with a city manager is you get what you pay for,” Mayor Pro Tem Jonathan Ingram said on Friday.

Ingram was a member of the subcommittee, along with Mayor Rick Gibbs, that was tasked with negotiating the terms of Summers’ contract. He said they pored over spreadsheets that included salaries of area managers and information on pay scale trends.

“That was the number that, right now, that we can substantiate, that’s fair,” he said.

According to the survey in the staff report for the council, the median annual salary for city managers in 39 Southern California cities, including Murrieta, is $234,296.

Jon Coupal, Sacramento-based president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said Friday that most governments are very creative in getting around voter-approved initiatives, on both the state and local level.

In this situation, Coupal said that if the council doesn’t like the cap that was included in the citizen’s initiative, it should put forth a new measure outlining preferred factors and methods for setting pay scales and let residents weigh in on its merits.

“The law is the law,” he said. “Go back to the voters. That’s called democracy.”

Aaron Claverie covers Temecula and Murrieta for The Press-Enterprise. The San Diego State graduate has covered everything from the swirling form of a bullfighter to the machinations at city hall during a career that has included stops in Washington D.C., the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and Arizona, Baja California, the Imperial Valley and Silicon Valley. He has been honored for both his work as an editor and reporter, including a first place award from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. In addition to his coverage of city affairs, Claverie has helped out on both the entertainment and sports desks over the years, covering the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Comic-Con International San Diego, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the NFL, NCAA football, MLS, NBA and MLB.